


after the nightmare ends

by Jace_Diaz_Of_Hell



Series: the dreamlands [3]
Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 18:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14857550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jace_Diaz_Of_Hell/pseuds/Jace_Diaz_Of_Hell
Summary: Jace handles the aftermath of Luke's death and comes to terms with just how abusive their relationship was. Fortunately, she has Arrog and her family to help her through it.





	after the nightmare ends

Jace goes to Luke's funeral.

 

She's not allowed to be alone for any length of time- everyone thinks they've been being so secretive, but Jace notices if she's alone for more than five minutes someone else will slip into the room to be there with her.

 

So she doesn't go to the funeral alone.

 

Marco and Tom had royal business; Estella is too angry at the memory of Luke hurting her sister to attend, and Milo seems shaken up by the entire business, so she doesn't ask him.

 

Nico goes to the funeral with her.

 

She wears all black, a long-sleeved, thick dress in the hopes that it will banish some of the chill residing in her. She had to have it retailored to fit one sleeve around her broken arm.

 

Nico holds her good hand as the speaker drones on.

 

Words drift to Jace, but they are meaningless in her ears.

 

_Passionate... loving... young..._

 

Finally it ends, and they lower the coffin into the ground. Jace watches it disappear, and Nico squeezes her hand tightly, for once seeming to sense that this is not the time to be lighthearted.

 

(Nico understands there's not times for it, but Jace hasn't realized that yet. She won't realize until Nico disappears a few months later. She won't realize until Nico's brought home half-dead and distrustful of everyone around them.)

 

She stays until all the funeral-goers have retreated, and then she walks up slowly, pressing her fingertips to his headstone.

 

“I miss you.” She whispers.

 

Nico eyes the bruises on her exposed skin, the scab on her throat from where Luke almost forced her to die, her broken arm and the distant look in her eyes. They think about spitting on Luke's grave for a moment, but they don't want to upset Jace more than she already is.

 

Instead, Nico takes her hand again and opens a portal back to the palace, away from the prying eyes of tabloid reporters.

 

* * *

 

 

_The knife is in her hand again, pressed to her throat, but this time Luke is speaking in her mind._

 

_**You understand I had to do this, right, Jace? It's your fault, you know. But don't worry, it won't hurt that much...** _

 

“ _Luke, no, please-!”_

 

And then she's screaming, and someone is shaking her.

 

Still trapped somewhere between dreaming and waking she bursts into tears.

 

“Princess, you're okay. It was just a dream, okay? Just a dream.”

 

Jace takes a moment and realizes where she is. She's lying down on the couch in their living room, and Arrog is beside her. For a moment she wonders why, then she remembers she was watching him play some sort of video game before exhaustion won out.

 

Even now that she's awake and knows where she is, the tears won't stop coming.

 

“Princess?” Arrog asks, and Jace rubs her eyes, wiping away tears.

 

“I'm sorry.” She tells him, voice rough from sleep and waking up screaming. “I didn't mean to fall asleep.”

 

But she's apologizing for so much more than that, and Arrog understands that.

 

“It's not your fault.” He says quietly, his voice firm. “None of it was ever your fault.”

 

She wishes she could agree with that.

* * *

 

There's so much she didn't know about the boy she loved.

 

Jace realizes this one day, when she's going to visit Luke's grave and stumbles across a small headstone.

 

_Isabelle Alissa Johnson,_ it reads.

 

She was seven years old, when she died. Jace does the math and figures Luke would have been about thirteen.

 

There were no photos of her in the little pool house Luke called his. He never mentioned he had a little sister.

 

She stares at the grave for a long few minutes, imagining what he had acted like- had he been a good older brother? Had he loved his sister? What had this little girl looked like?

 

When Jace looks over at Luke's grave, there are roses on it already. A dozen, flames glowing in the reddish light that fills the underworld.

 

_Remember the roses he would give you?_ Her mind whispers, and her fingers start to shake.  _Apologies for hurting you, quiet little love confessions? Remember?_

 

She drops her bouquet- daffodils and daisies- on Isabelle's grave and turns back to Corus, her silent guard.

 

“I don't want to stay.” She says, so he takes her home. He pretends not to notice how badly her hands are shaking when she heads into her room, and she appreciates that.

 

* * *

 

 

The bruises on Jace's skin begins to fade, but the memories are still fresh and real. One day, Stel reaches out for a casual hug and Jace flinches back. She pretends not to see the brief flash of hurt and then anger flash over Stel's face. She knows its anger at Luke, and that's still hard to deal with.

 

A very small part of her some days thinks _I'm glad he's out of my life,_ and the rest of her is revolted with the thought, immediately followed by, _I loved him! He loved me! I know he did!_

 

Some days, she curls up under the covers and can't get out of bed. Sometimes she blasts the kind of music Luke liked, all rock and roll and _loud._ It hurts her ears, but Jace never turns it down or off. It feels like a punishment to her.

 

Some days Milo walks in, knows she isn't up for talking, and passes notes on a whiteboard with her until she promises to come watch one of his rehearsals. 

 

Other days, Stel will come in with two mugs of hot cocoa and cinnamon, her pink eyes glinting hopefully. Jace might come out from under the blanket and have a conversation with her. Or she'll just edge out enough to take the cocoa and ask Stel to put on a Disney movie.

 

On the Disney movie days the other siblings will sometimes rotate in, Trixie braiding Jace's hair back and watching the subtitles on the screen; Nico singing dramatically with the music, seizing Jace's good hand until Jace sings along, grinning.

 

* * *

 

About a month after Luke's death and two weeks after the flaming rose debacle, Jace visits Luke's grave again. She brings a small bouquet of flowers, lying it next to the withered roses.

 

His grave looks accusing to her, and she can almost hear his voice in the back of her head.

 

**You got me killed.**

 

“It was your fault.” Jace whispers, and that feels too much like a betrayal, a truth too hard for her to speak yet, so she amends her sentence. “It was _never_ my fault.”

 

That truth feels a little easier, so she repeats it to herself under her breath. She stays only a few minutes and then she's gone.

* * *

 

 

Her cast comes off a short time later. That week, she starts doing gymnastics. Not much, just handsprings and cartwheels. Once or twice she crashes into a wall and has to root around for a bandaid or two. Sometimes she'll just fall on the carpet, which coaxes a smile out of her.

 

Then she starts sticking landings and laughing when she gets one.

 

A week after that, Estella drags her to spring cheerleader tryouts.

 

She comes home that afternoon, smiling with a new uniform in hand.

* * *

The bad days are rough.

 

She covers her ears and pulls the blankets over her head, trying to block out voices that are only in her mind.

 

She stares in the mirror at the scar that curves along her cheekbone, remembering how she could have lost an eye.

 

She tears off her necklace and throws it into the fireplace, where it slips through and falls to god only knows where because the necklace is a reminder of the night she gave everything away that she didn't want to.

 

But there is this- there is the way Annie slips under the covers, plunking a story book in Jace's lap and snuggling into her side. There is Marco, doing Jace's makeup before her first cheerleading game back. There is Milo, who has her take the place of someone who got mono for one of his plays. She binds up her hair and goes in as Tybalt, furious in everything he does.

 

There is Nico who reaches out in his casual, clumsy ways to drag her along on pranks or show her movies so _stupid_ she can't help but laugh.

 

There is Trixie and how she braids flowers into Jace's hair, how sometimes she reaches out tentatively with her mind, letting Jace know how much she loves her.

 

There is Estella, who drags Jace out in public, who keeps her close and glares at anyone who comes near.

 

There is Tom and the quiet assurance that he is there, how he presses a mug of hot chocolate into her hands when she can't sleep and he's up doing paperwork.

 

And there is Arrog. There is their budding relationship, soft touches to the arm or holding hands when it's quiet and just them. There is the way she smiles every time she thinks of him, and there is their first kiss when he stumbles over his words for a minute trying to compliment her and she presses a quick peck to his lips so he knows she understands.

 

And one night, when she hangs out with Arrog, she's falling asleep when her phone goes off.

 

 **thememeking:** i've been having rlly weird dreams lately.

 

Jace makes a mental note to reply later, her hand drifting to hold Arrog's as she falls asleep.

 

She's not okay just yet, but she will be.

 


End file.
